Abstract
In this paper, a multi-user multi-relay network with integrated energy harvesting and transferring (IEHT) strategy is studied. In our system, a simultaneous two-level cooperation, i.e., information- and energy-level cooperation is conducted for uplink data transmissions (from the users to a destination). Specifically, network coding is employed at the relays to facilitate the information-level cooperation; meanwhile, ET is adopted to share the harvested energy among the users for the energy-level cooperation. For generality purposes, the Nakagami-m fading channels that are independent but not necessarily identically distributed (i.n.i.d.) are considered. The problem of energy efficiency maximization under constraints of the energy causality and a predefined outage probability threshold is formulated and shown to be non-convex. By exploiting fractional and geometric programming, a convex form-based iterative algorithm is developed to solve the problem efficiently. Close-to-optimal power allocation and energy cooperation policies across consecutive transmissions are found. Moreover, the effects of relay locations, wireless energy transmission efficiency, battery capacity as well as the existence of direct links are investigated. The performance comparison with the current state of solutions demonstrates that the proposed policies can manage the harvested energy more efficiently.